Burning Up
by NudgeThePyro
Summary: GodsAU: We all have a breaking point. That is a fact. We all need a break. That is also a fact. But when Juvia takes time away from her home land, her troubles and personal demons soon follow suit- bringing with them a trail of misery, calamity, and quite a few goodbyes... "If it's a war they want, than it's a war they will get."
1. Chapter 1

**This story is NOT DEAD! it may be a slow process, but it is moving forward.**

 ** _Edited: June, 26th 2015_**

* * *

Juvia sat alone on a deserted stretch of beach, just east of Magnolia's harbor. The salty air and gentle sounds of waves lapping against the jagged rocks below calmed her troubled mind like nothing has ever managed in the entirety of her long life.

The full moon above her head was at it's highest point, shining in a soft white glow that bounced off her pale skin. Her sharp, cat-like eyes scanned the expanse of sea in front of her, waiting for any sign of communication. Seeing none, she sighed and stared up at the moon (the image making her think about where she came from and brought back certain nostalgic feelings), acknowledging that it was probably nearing midnight.

Lately, the water 'mage' had been having a heavily foreboding feeling. The blunette had been keeping quiet about it but at the same time, staying very vigilant of her her surroundings at all times, looking in dark corners and anywhere someone (or thing) could be hiding. Maybe the problem was hiding in plain sight, right under her nose…?

Juvia had chosen not to think about _her_ now; _she_ was confined to a completely separate part of space. Juvia shivered at the memories of her sister's soul haunting and tormenting her mind in her home realm all those years ago. She had endured for a while but the guilt she felt was beginning to eat away at her soul, and she needed to take a break; so she went to the Mortal Plain and built a life for herself in the form of magic (naturally).

Juvia checked the water for Brooke again. Nothing. _'Where was she? If Brooke was busy then Marlin should have contacted me in Brook's place_.' Juvia remembered the last conversation she had with Brooke just a few weeks ago.

 _It was becoming late in the evening and the moon was shining brightly in the sky._

 _Our heroine sighed as she realized that it was high time for her to began her trek to the beach._

 _Juvia was just about to leave the guild hall when she felt an ice cold hand on her shoulder. The young woman turned and saw none other than her favorite ice mage, Gray Fullbuster. A light blush spread across her cheek bones, it was no secret that Juvia had a huge crush on Gray Fullbuster. She might not have been very loud about it like she used to be, and he wasn't as silent about it as he used to be. They were more than friends but not quite dating even though they had spent nights together on multiple occasions._

 _Juvia noticed that there was a job request in his hand, and when she looked up at his eyes, they were looking towards the ground more so than to her face. Juvia, not believing her eyes, could just barely see a pink tint to his cheeks._

 _"What can Juvia do for Gray?" Juvia beamed at the raven-haired man in front of her, she had dropped the '-sama' from his name after the Grand Magic Games- the new Juvia and everything. Gray looked up and made eye contact with the bluenette beauty._

 _"I was wondering if you wanted to go out on this mission with me," Gray showed her the request paper he had in his hand. It was a simple job: to stop a couple of flame-throwing thieves from terrorizing a fishing village further to the north. "The pay is well and Natsu and Lucy are out and won't be back for another couple days, Erza is on an S-class by herself and I'd rather have a partner. Do you want to go with me?"_

 _"Uh… Juvia would love to— when do we leave?" Juvia hoped that it wasn't tonight- though she wanted to spend as much time with her Gray as possible, she still needed to contact Brook._

 _"Early tomorrow morning, later tonight maybe," he thought for a moment. "Is that alright with you, Juvia?" The woman just nodded in response, not trusting her own voice in that second._

 _"Yes," she said. Then she turned to face the door, "excuse her, but Juvia needs to go take care of some things."_

 _"Oh, want me to go with you? We are about to go on a mission together and there aren't really any fun people here." Gray looked to the few people still left in the guild hall behind him. Only a couple of the faceless mages joking in the distant corner, Cana, being dead drunk, and Mira Jane trying to get her to go home and the two mages by the door._

" _Um…" Juvia couldn't let Gray in on her secret-_ ever _; but she didn't want to lie to him and she also couldn't want to reject him. So she settled on passive but discouraging. "If Gray wants to, Juvia just needs to go shopping. It isn't anything special, Gray," maybe he wouldn't want to go if she told him that she was just going to do boring things._

" _No problem," he smirked at her then pushed open the door to lead her out. "I'll walk with you or something. It's late and a lady shouldn't be out by herself." He shrugged like there wasn't a blush covering mess not ten seconds ago, his cool guy act was so extreme sometimes it was over the top, but charming in a weird way._

" _Oi! Juvia! You coming or what?" Gray reached out and grabbed her wrist, pulling her forward slightly and making her squeak. She had become so distracted by her thoughts and his amazing face, she tripped over Mavis-knew-what. Sending her straight to the gravel, face first. Juvia was_ beyond _embarrassed. "Juvia!"_

" _Juvia is fine!" She could feel the tears welling up in the corners of her eyes; she sat on her knees with Gray kneeling in front of her. "But Juvia is so embarrassed now!" the young woman wailed. Gray, seeing her cry for no reason at all, couldn't help but to chuckle. "Now Gray is laughing at Juvia!" She cried even harder._

" _No, no, no! It's not that! It's nothing," he wiped the tears away from her large, blue eyes. "Let's go, Juvia." He stood and reached his hand out for her to grab._

" _Okay," Juvia placed he hand in Gray's larger one and set off into the night. After a few hours of walking, talking, and shopping together, Gray walked Juvia home to Fairy Hills. As soon as the ice mage left (not without coming in for further time together), Juvia showered and changed clothes. Juvia sneaked out of Fairy Hills via window, and then she headed to the beach in very short dark blue shorts, a white sweat shirt, and dark blue house flats._

 _The walk to the beach was relatively peaceful: the crisp night air kissed her skin as it blew by and gently rustled the leaves of the tress in the park. Billions of stars shined lined the finest of diamonds in the sky, illuminating the path to her destination._

 _Though the night was company enough, the young woman couldn't help but let her mind wonder back to her last conversation with her old friend. According to the young nymph, everything was well even though the citizens were becoming anxious and some what worried about their queen's absence despite being constantly assured that everything was okay and that she would be back soon. It was easy to forget about the time differences. For example: the seven years missed on Tenroujima Island was only a week for those trapped, but to everyone else in Earthland, it was seven whole years. But for the Ocean Realm, it was almost sixty. It wasn't a problem for some of nymphs, specifically Brook and the Captain of the Guard Marlin. They were a very special type of nymph that tended to have exceptionally long lives, so they were completely it was still quite a stretch of time._

 _"Is that true?" Brook asked. "About you coming home soon, I mean."_

 _"I really can not say whether that is correct or not at this time- we will see what the future holds for me here. I can't just up and leave."_

 _"...I guess so."_

She felt so bad about leaving and placing all of her responsibilities onto such small shoulders. Juvia would love to go home, but simply couldn't bring herself to do so.

Juvia threw herself backwards, so she was laying on the cool sand, staring up at the night sky and bright moon. That used to be her moon, created in remembrance of her Masters. She made it raise and fall every night. Only one of the many things she missed about home.

After nearly an hour of waiting, the blue haired immortal noticed glowing ripples in the water in front of her. Juvia scrambled to get off of her back and across the sand, leaving her shoes out of reach of lapping waves; she was standing thigh deep in the water by the time she stopped. From the shimmering section of water, a face appeared. A young woman with pale skin, sharp and attention grabbing bright green eyes, but her sky blue hair was turning gray.

"Your highness," Brook may have looked older but she still had the bubbly personality she missed so much. Juvia could tell that acting in her place took a lot of her, "how have you been?"

"Juvia is fine. How are you?" Her good friend smile faltered a little bit before she answered.

"Things are… okay here. The citizens are becoming restless with your absence." Brook sighed, allowing Juvia to take in the full magnitude of the effects the high amounts of stress have had on her. The woman looked slightly thinner than before, and her normally olive skin was slightly pale. "The citizens are happier, no more riots in the streets. The One Sea is quiet, no storms to speak of. Though I just had Marlin send a small number of guards to deliver food to a few isolated villages in the Northern Lands that are going through a famine. Down South, towards the forests, there was massive earthquake so we have clean up efforts heading in that direction. But other than those two things and maybe a few others, everything is going well."

"And what the Fire Realm?" Juvia inquired, "Has Amber made any serious movements of any kind?"

"None that we have been able to identify. I recently put Marlin up to the tasks of keeping tabs on their military," Brook looked to her left, where a servant held out a piece of paper on a clipboard and a pen. After a quick read through, she signed and handed the papers back to the servant who thanked her and left. "But he has also be oddly quiet in the terms of government. Nothing has really changed, but there is just less of him appearing in public- if that makes sense." Brook smiled up to Juvia and Juvia smiled back at her.

"Alright," Juvia said. "Keep checking in."

"Yes, ma'am," the connection between the two began to dissolve, "I will connect you again during the third full moon to check up and give you another report."

"Very well, take care, Brook."

Once the connection was completely severed, Juvia began making her way back to the beach to get her shoes from the beach, then back to her room at Fairy Hills. 'Amber being quiet isn't all that strange, he never has been one for dramatics,' Juvia thought on her way home. 'But he has never been so quiet.'

Juvia arrived back at her dorm and quietly unlocked her door. She had to extra careful to avoid being caught by any of the other residents or Erza.

As soon as she was in her bedroom, she wet to the bath room to rinse her body off, grabbed a pair of pajamas then went straight to sleep.

* * *

The next morning, before the sun tainted the sky with color, Juvia pried her eyes open. She was dazed at first but then remembered that she had a mission to complete and a train to catch soon. The young woman got out of bed, stretched, then began packing her backpack before getting dressed.

Bag packed, Juvia began to dress herself. She decided to change things up a little bit and dressed in a new variation of her normal dark blue dress. Juvia wore a blue and white tight fighting bra, which she hid underneath a blue shawl, not unlike her usual one, that left her fit belly exposed. Her bottoms were dark blue with white stripes down the sides that fit some what tightly, but she could move more freely than if she was in her usual dress. Her shoes were worn, black boots. She pulled her hair back and into a ponytail, that fell almost to her butt, her bangs were out and fell to the right.

Satisfied with her appearance, Juvia grabbed her bag and left for the train station.

* * *

Gray sat at the train station, trying to stay awake while waiting for his partner.

Things used to be so simple between them, she would confess her love for him almost every day and he would ignore her, then it seemed as if their roles were switched. Now she was quiet and he was trying to get her attention. He liked her, that was a fact that he had come to terms with, but they are just friends but not just friends. Jeez, why were relationships so complicated? Well, it wasn't really complicated, it just needed to ask her officially then everything would be uncomplicated. Simple as that.

A flash of blue to his left caught his eye.

"Gray?" Juvia was calling him.

"Over here, Juvia!" She turned and looked at him, and his heart began to beat a little harder. Her outfit was different from any he had seen her in and he would be lying if he said she didn't look absolutely beautiful in it..

"Is Gray ready to leave?" She looked up at him, smiling. If he could, he would kiss her silly right then and there but they needed to leave for their job.

"Yeah, I'm ready."

* * *

It was early the next morning when they returned from their mission. It wasn't to exhausting so the team decided to spend the rest of the day at the guild before going home for the day.

Gray was off with his usual team probably drinking and start fights with and Juvia was reading her favorite book when Master called the guild to order.

"Natsu, Lucy, Gray and Juvia! In my office now!" The short man retreated back into his office.

"What did you two do now? And why did you drag Juvia into it?!" Lucy yelled at Natsu and Gray, Erza still hadn't returned from her solo mission at this point.

"Nothing! I swear!" The fire mage cried, "it was probably Ice Princess' fault anyway!"

"WHAT?! I didn't do anything!" The ice mage said.

The group continued to bicker all the way into the Master's office where Juvia was already waiting.

"I have called you four in here because I have received word that there is dangerous summoning activity going on in the southwestern part of Fiore. Gray, Juvia," the two mages perked up at their names. "I know that you just returned from a job but I really need the both of out to go out on this mission. The Council has asked that we send a small team to investigate the problem and deal with it ourselves. We do not know what these people are trying to summon but that makes it all the more urgent to be put to a stop as soon as possible. Right?"

"Yes," Lucy said. "You want us to go check this out and put a stop to it before they can accomplish whatever they are trying to summon?"

"Yes."

"How long is the mission going to take?" Gray asked.

"Indefinite."

"When do we leave?" Juvia spoke up and asked this time.

"Later tonight," he said. "Now go home and get some rest and pack. I want to see you four before you leave tonight. Understood?"

"Yes, sir," then the small group of mages left the old man's office. Natsu, Happy, and Lucy left for Lucy's apartment, leaving Gray and Juvia on their own.

"So," Gray said awkwardly, "what now?"

"Well, Juvia was going to go home and get ready for the mission," Juvia thought for a moment. "Why?"

"No reason, I'll see you later to night." Gray walked away, towards his apartment, leaving Juiva by herself in front of the guild. The woman turned around and began the walk back to Fairy Hills alone.

Later that night, the group was sent off by their master. Boarding the train, neither had any idea of what they were truly in for on this mission. Or that this was the beginning of a series of long and grueling trials...

* * *

 **This story is my baby, my first story and i want to make sure he is as successful as he can be. So i will be going through every existing chapter and fixing and improving any and all errors that i find. If you find any or noticed anything that detracts from the flow of the story, please let me know. Any criticism is good criticism at this point!**

 **Don't forget to read and review guys, Thanks! (p.s: please follow me so you know when im updating or publishing anything because this summer is going to be a long one and i have so many ideas buzzing around in my head!)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Again, working on it.**

 **Edited: June 29th, 2015**

* * *

Juvia was trying to put her luggage in it's compartment when Gray took the bag from her.

"Thanks," she murmured as he stuck his belongings on the shelf as well. Juvia slide into the small space, where Lucy was silently seethed with an unconscious dragon slayer on the floor. Before the bluenette could ask what happened, there was a firm grip on her shoulder. She turned around to see the last member of the team shaking his head at her, wordlessly telling her to simply not ask questions.

Juvia only nodded and sat down next to the window, Gray on her other side. All the blunette really wanted was to simply sleep for a while before arriving at the destination. But with Natsu's motion sickness induced complaining and Happy, who was harassing Lucy with the latter shouting at Natsu not to puke on her and at same time trying to strangle Happy.

"STUPID CAT!" Lucy shouted at the blue furred feline, hovering just above her reach. Happy's paws were covering his mouth, muffling his giggling. "You liiiike him!"

Juvia rolled her eyes and turned her face to look out the window. The rolling hills and mountain were in the far distance, they were so calm and beautiful. Much different from the occupants of the train car.

Then, it was like a freight train had smashed in to her mind, so forceful it almost made her wince. A feeling so heavy that it actually hurt to breathe settled on her. The heavy feeling she's been having lately was suddenly almost unbearable. The rest of the ride was spent to distract herself by engaging in a conversation she couldn't even focus on.

While Lucy was explaining that Natsu might not be able to just burn who ever was causing this to the ground, Gray leaned over to Juvia and quietly whispered a question. "You okay? You seem kind of distracted."

"Juvia is just concerned about the mission and thinking about what this could be and such." Juvia said, not really lying but omitting some information. Gray looked at her, his eye narrowing but he didn't say anything if he doubted her. The rest of the ride was pretty much silent, leaving the rain woman to her own thoughts.

 _"Welcome to the city of Rhode, if this is your stop please gather you things and exit the train in an orderly manner. The Fiore Rails wishes you a very nice day!"_

"Juvia," Lucy said. "Will you please wake up Gray?" Lucy winked at the woman and a light crimson spread across her cheek bones.

The Ice Mage's messy black hair was hanging low in front of his eyes. A thin trail of drool left a trail down his chin and light snores left his parted lips. Juvia couldn't help but smile at his peaceful expression, it was almost cute. Though she had the view of his sleeping face a few times before, it never failed to amaze her at how beautiful he was- even when he wasn't. Juvia reached her hand out to shake him awake, lightly slapping his face. His eyes opened lazily, unfocused before directing his gaze to her face.

"Huh?" Gray looked around the cabin and let out a long and loud yawn while stretching his tense muscles. "Hey Juvia," he said, voice rough from just waking up. "Are we there already?"

"Yes," she said. "You should wipe your mouth, Gray," weakly attempting to stifle a a light laugh. "You're drooling."

"Shit," he cursed while frantically wiping at his mouth. "Is it off?"

After a few minutes of struggling to get everybody's things together, they were finally able to get off the train. Lucy and Juvia went to get a map of area from the souvenir shop in the station.

"What'd you say, Ice Princess?!"

"You heard me, Ash for Brains!"

Of course the Ice age and Dragon Slayer were going at it again. Lucy and Juvia were standing of to the side, debating whether or not they should intervene.

"Natsu," Lucy called, "can you not fight Gray for a few minutes. We need to get started." The menacing look in her eyes sent a shiver down the spine of Natsu, immediately ceasing his pointless fight.

"AYE!" Natsu using Happy's catch phrase in an attempt to save his own skin. Gray laughed out loud, pointing at his teammate, calling him whipped. Behind him though, Juvia cleared her throat. The black haired man stopped laughing and looked at the woman.

"What?" he asked but Juvia just stayed silent as she slightly glared at him. "What?! It was funny!"

* * *

"Are we there yet? My feet hurt!" Lucy was starting to trail behind the rest of her team.

"Come on Lucy," Natsu turned his head to look at the blonde, who was lagging behind the group.

"Maybe your feet hurt because of your shoes," Happy jabbed as he flew just out of her reach.

Lucy only groaned and trekked on. For a brief moment or so, the group continued to travel the beaten dirt road when a small sound caught the the attention of Juvia.

Juvia stopped walking suddenly, sending a jet stream of boiling water into the bushes to her left. The only other person even slightly aware of their situation, was the only dragon slayer on the team. Figures dropped down from the trees and jumped out of the bushes.

In an instant, the rest of the team was ready for a fight. There were only about 10 of them, no big challenge to Fairy Tail mages. Lucy had her keys ready, Natsu's first were flaming, Gray was in position and Juvia had orbs of water by her side.

"Who are you and what do you want?" Gray growled out. A few of the attackers came forward, launching attacks.

'Speed magic', Juvia thought as she side stepped a roundhouse kick that could have easily broken her jaw. 'Okay. We can do this your way,' Juvia turned on her heal and she put all her weight behind a kick to her attackers lower stomach. He doubled over from the force and she drove her knee up into his face, breaking his nose and knocking him out.

"JUVIA- LOOK OUT!" Lucy yelled out somewhere to her rear right.

Too late.

She briefly heard Gray and Natsu shouting while Lucy called on one of her spirits.

The amount of magic that was released was enough to kill a normal water mage, but she had faced much worse. Juvia managed to look behind her and see the face of a man who had his arms wrapped around her shoulders, effectively expelling his lightning magic at point blank. The woman couldn't move- the position restricted her from fighting back and the pain was so distracting she couldn't use any spell to defend against him. For a brief second, Juvia thought that if she let herself 'die' at that moment, that would be her best chance to get home for a long time without rising any suspicion. The woman quickly expelled the idea, as she still couldn't bring herself to up and leave the life she made for herself.

"ICE MAKE: GEYSER!"

'Cold-Cold-Cold!'

Even though the freezing pain only lasted for a few seconds, it was still enough to make the former rain woman collapse to the ground, in a passed out heap.

After about ten minutes, Juvia opened her eyes , trying regain her thought and body. She could barely register the orange and pink sky, as well as the worried faces of her team looming over her.

 _"Is she okay?" Happy whispered._

 _"I'm sure she will be fine, Happy. Juvia is strong- she can handle a little bit of lightening."_

 _"But she is still made of water... Wait, guys- she's waking up."_

 _"Juvia? Can you hear me?"_

It took a minute to find her voice and a quiet, "ouch," was the best thing that her scattered brain could muster.

"You okay, Juvia?" Gray's voice. The young mage sat up and crossed her legs, cradling her head in her hands as she prayed the throbbing would die down sooner rather than later. Natsu held a hand out, offering his assistance to help her stand on her own feet.

"Juvia is okay," as she took the man's hand, pulling herself to her feet. The blunette noticed, for the first time, that all of the attackers were lying around unconscious. "We should continue before it's too late."

"Are you okay to go on, Juvia? We can always take a short break before going on," Lucy was truly concerned for her friend. She had just been electrocuted at point blank by a -not-so-weak mage. Juvia turned and smiled at the blonde.

"Juvia is fine," she said. "It will take a lot more than that to take her down, right? Juvia wants to hurry and get where we need to be now," she turned and continued to walk.

"Juvia is right," Gray stood and began to follow the water mage. "We have a mission to complete and we need to move."

The group trudged forward- never letting their guard down. Gray's gaze never left her back though, whether she knew it or not.. He began to notice that she was becoming fidgety as they continued on their walk. He suddenly had this deeply foreboding feeling in his chest, one that seemed to crush his lungs. The dark haired man brushed the feeling off as concern and worry for the blue beauty.

Soon enough, the sun had set and the group came upon a clearing at the base of a mountain of a rock.

"I smell blood, guys." Natsu whispered. He lifted his hand and pointed to a shadow at the base of the mountain. "And there's somethin' I've never smelled before, too. Coming from in there.

* * *

'Just a little more,' Mikeru thought as he poured even more of his diminished magical energy into the vortex of fire in front of him. It was almost time to prepare the body for this goddess, who he was trying to bring into this plane, the Mortal Plane. His destiny of purifying the world through fire was finally about to come true and he would forever be known as the one who saved humanity from themselves- the greatest hero in the history of mankind!

The whirlpool glowed brighter as the heat intensified, signaling that something with inhuman abilities was trying to cross over.

"Bring me the body!" Mikeru shouted to his henchmen. They ran off to fetch the corpse that would be host to the disembodied god.

Not long after that, a silhouette could be seen trying to escape the vortex.

The Goddess Scylla.

The body was set in front of Mikeru and the purple haired man smiled evilly. He had scoured the world— every village on every continent— searching for the woman who best matched the image of the Goddess Scylla: beautiful, big eyes, long orange and red hair, deeply tanned or light brown skin, tall and fit with a perfect figure. This one was the best that they found and couldn't pass up the opportunity, so they killed that woman and persevered her body. The _only_ other reason why he selected her was because she was a mage so the capacity to hold magic was present, though not much- but the space was still there and could be expanded to hold as much as needed.

"Finally my destiny will be complete!" He cackled manically, "It's finally happening after all these years of trying to bring her here— she will finally arrive!"

The body in front of him began to glow as the transformation process began to take place. A small ribbon of magic flowed from the vortex of intensely burning heat and light, into the earthly body. Then the red shadow of a woman emerged from the cyclone and slowly moved towards the body before, finally, making contact and the effect was _devastating_.

Mikeru was thrown back by the amount and sheer force of the magic, scorched by the heat, and nearly blinded by the light. The force pinned him down to floor of the cavern like gravity had been increased tenfold- and Mikeru was no small man, over six feet tall and extremely well built. But this was a serious amount of magic.

When the light seemed to fade, Mikeru opened his eyes and was once again blinded at the sight in front of him. But he couldn't help the wicked smile that crept on his face as he shielded his eyes.

Scylla.

There she was- in the body that had been prepared for her insane amount of power, sitting on a stone altar in a short, red deep-necked, roman tunic that was longer in the back. On her feet were gold sandals that laced all the up to her knees. Her red hair flowed gracefully down her back and her solid- no white- red orange eyes were fixed on the man lying on the floor in front of her.

"Who are you?" she asked. Her voice drew him in, "are you the one that brought me here?" It took Mikeru a moment to form words through his state of shock, finally remembering the big picture.

"Yes," he bowed to Scylla. "I am Mikeru, it was my destiny-"

All the air was forced out his lungs as another wave of scorching heat ran through the room. Scylla stalked over to Mikeru and grabbed his neck with a burning hand. He struggled as his skin began to sizzle underneath her palm. She began to squeeze.

"Destiny?" She laughed without humor, "destiny is just a reason that you disgusting humans give your selves to continue on with your meaningless lives." Her grip grew tighter and Mikeru's blood began to boil inside his body, the skin beginning to break. "But I guess that not all humans are bad. You created a method that allowed me to cross into this plane and regain a body- so for that I thank you." She squeezed his neck even tighter, making her hand hotter then- _pop_. His head had given out from the pressure and finally exploded. Blood and brains splattered all over the cave walls and Scylla.

She dropped Mikeru's body and calmly looked at her surroundings; she saw the black of night- the stars twinkling in an inky blue-black pool that was the sky, and began to walk towards it.

* * *

 **So, what do you think about this editing? Same things really, you'll start noticing changes as I move through the next chapters.**


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